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I need a mentor. So do you. You may be at the very beginning of your career or even still in school…a time when mentors are a common topic. For those of us who have been doing what we do for a while, mentoring may not seem like such an obvious need. It is.

consider these 3 reasons to seek out your own mentor

Careers are not static

In this age of technological leaps we don’t begin a career and continue on a single path through retirement. ‘Lifelong learner’ has become a catch phrase on every resume and in every job interview. Over the course of your career you will need to learn new skills. Mentors can guide you to find the training you need, suggest skills to pursue and even teach some of those skills.

When I was a young designer, CAD was just entering the workplace. To stay relevant I’ve spent hundreds of hours learning to use the newer technologies that allow me to continue to do my job. My mentors along the way have both taught me the skills I need and directed me to find the training they couldn’t teach.

You are making a career shift

You’ve been in the trenches for years and you want to change directions and go into management. You’ve got great design skills but marketing taps talent and connections that you haven’t had an opportunity to use. Commercial office space designs fill your portfolio….now you want to change directions and do some retail design (or residential, or hospitality, or health care…). Or maybe you’ve been doing this a long time and now you want to teach.

Finding a mentor that understands the direction you want to go, someone who has even traveled that path is invaluable. They’ve been where you are and can help you to see your options for change.

You are bored

A mentor will challenge and inspire you. Perhaps you’re bored because you’ve been doing the same thing the same way for years or decades. Maybe it’s time to tap a new source of business. Or augment your business with a new set of skills. A mentor will see you and your process through a lens different from the lens you use. Just as designers use the critiques of others to solidify design solutions, we can all benefit from the critiques of outsiders to refine and sharpen the direction of our careers.

finding a mentor

So now that you’ve decided that a mentor is worth seeking, where should you look and how should you approach? There are programs that work like dating sites. You can cast a wide net using social media. Networking events might be an option. But the bottom line is that a mentor/mentee relationship is just like any other relationship. It requires give and take, a personal connection and that magical chemistry. So I’d skip those first three suggestions.

Forget the term ‘mentor’

…this is a relationship. Giving it a title is uncomfortable. The most useful mentor relationships build on themselves, so very likely you already know several people who might mentor you. Don’t formalize a request (‘will you be my mentor?’), instead ask a question. Ask for a specific piece of advice. If this relationship is to evolve into a mentoring relationship, this will be the beginning. If not, you will know to look elsewhere.

When I first began writing a few years ago, I reached out to a friend who is a journalist. I asked if we could get together because I had questions about how to charge for my writing. She offered me her ‘friends and family rate’ to answer my questions. Clearly she was not interested in mentoring. I continued my quest.

Look to people who respect you

One great way to begin an effective mentoring relationship is to find someone to whom you’ve already proven yourself. Someone who knows your work and your abilities. This individual will already be in your court and may have the time and inclination to help you build skills, change direction, or otherwise grow as a professional.

Do you need to build skills?

If you’ve been living and working in the same geographical area for some time, there are people already in your circle of acquaintances who can help. Don’t let age or title narrow the pool. If you are looking for specific computer skills, perhaps someone younger would be an appropriate mentor.

My son has a friend who is a wizard at PhotoShop. While he can’t give me career advice, he can help me boost my skills. And while he is helping me learn PhotoShop I can help him explore career options.

Do you need perspective?

If what you’re looking for is perspective and direction, you may need to reach out to someone who’s been working in your field longer. A superior in your current position might be an option, or perhaps someone you know outside your firm.

One of my early mentors worked for an architectural firm and served as architect of record on several projects that we did together. He eventually convinced me to leave my job and come to work at his firm. When I needed help or advice, he was always my first stop.

Don’t be shy

Talk about what you want to do and where you hope to go with it. Talk about it at networking events. Talk about it at parties. Reach out to friends you haven’t seen in a while, and those you saw last week, and mention your plans. You have a much bigger circle of contacts than you realize. Let them be part of your path…many people enjoy being a helpmate.

I was at a party last night talking with a woman I’ve known socially for a decade. She dabbles in art but we have no common business connections. I mentioned that I am going to start teaching design and she offered to connect me with her cousin who has been teaching design for several years. Here’s a connection, and possibly a mentor, that I never would have known about if not for a casual mention in a social setting.

Reach out to strangers

While reaching out to strangers goes against everything I’ve already said, sometimes it is appropriate. If you are changing careers or looking for a career shift, you may need to look outside your circle of acquaintances. While I don’t suggest putting a request out on social media, I have been known to offer to buy lunch for someone who worked in a business that I found interesting. Answering ads for jobs is another way of meeting people in the business you hope to enter. Just be sure that you have enough to offer for this to be worthwhile. Be clear about what you have to offer and where you are still building skills and knowledge. Attend professional development meetings, seminars, conferences, classes. Reach out to the people you meet.

Give back

This has two components:

Offer what you can to your mentor. Buy lunch, proof a website, offer design advice, write a letter… Don’t let this be a one-way relationship or it won’t last and it won’t be fruitful. No matter where you are in your career, you have much to offer.

Mentor someone else.

Good luck on your quest! And if you need a mentor in my business, I might be a good place to start!

The race to nowhere is not just a phenomenon applicable to high school kids pulling their hair out (or worse) trying to get into the ‘right’ college so that they can get the ‘right’ job and live the ‘right’ life. It’s a phenomenon that exists everywhere and affects everyone. And where are we all racing to? The end of the line is truly the end of the line, so what is the rush? We are already where we need to be….smack dab in the middle of our lives. And a number of people in a number of countries are beginning to notice and slow the f*^# down.

Carl Honore gave a TED talk quite a few years ago on this very topic and much of what he discussed then is still quite relevant. He highlights the connection between our need for speed (speed dating, speed walking, speed dial, speed reading, even speed yoga) and eroding health, productivity and quality of life. This focus on speed also creates stresses that limit creativity, something that I find unbearable. He posits that with the advent of the Slow Food movement we are beginning as societies to see the benefits to slowing down. Slow food has given way to slow communities, slow sex, even slow money, a topic that came up at a food conference I attended recently and was a reference to crowd funding.

Arianna Huffington suggests that this need for speed is an addiction to ‘busy-ness’ with the goal being success based on money and power. She proposes a ‘third metric’ borne of a commencement speech she gave in 2013 at Smith College. The third metric is success based on quality of life, or thriving, rather than defining success as money and power. Guy Kawasaki created a list of ten tips from Arianna Huffington’s new book Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder that can help us to create a life where we care for our health, sleep enough, and do not live to work. I paraphrase (and expand) his tips here:

Redefine success: base success on the joy you’ve brought to people’s lives and whether or not you’ve made the world a better place.

Avoid burnout: working longer and harder does not reap more success.

Nurture your well being: exercise, meditate, do music and art, spend time with friends and family.

I’d like to add number 11 to this list. Bring the midday meal back to your life. My husband enjoys a midday meal once a week with a friend. They take turns bringing food to the office to prepare and enjoy together, away from their desks. Peter Miller just released Lunch at the Shop: The Art and Practice of the Midday Meal. He and his staff make and share lunch each day, setting deliberate time aside from the busy-ness, the computer and the clock. Number 11 is a nice concrete start to the lesser defined 1 through 10. And it’s nearly 1 o’clock as I finish this post, so I’m off to my midday meal!

I think I’ve mentioned I’m a ridiculous cookbook hoarder. Growing up I loved watching cooking shows on PBS, although I had little interest in actually cooking. As a matter of fact when my mom tried to engage me in the kitchen I balked and left the house in favor of mud puddles and swingsets, and later friends and books. But every Saturday morning would find me transfixed by the Galloping Gourmet and Julie Child. I still enjoy the ‘how to’ cooking shows over the reality based drama-in-the-kitchen shows. There’s something about the story of food that pulls me in. And when it comes to cookbooks, I rarely use them to cook, but covet every beautiful book I see and read them like novels with gorgeous pictures.

Now that it’s award season, I’ll share a few of my favorites from some fabulous award winners and nominees. I’m sure there are quite a few additional books that merit inclusion, but I don’t own them (yet). Maybe next year…..

The Best Restaurant in the World

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy is a group of over 900 mega foodies who eat out. A lot. And based on their own impressions they each vote, in order, for the 7 best restaurants they’ve eaten in during the prior 18 months. Then the votes get tallied and we get their yearly list every April. You can find the whole list here.

Noma is back on top. Chef Rene Redzepi (one of my personal favorites even though I’ve never eaten his food…..sigh…..) tells amazing food stories both about the food he cooks and his approach to food and dining. Although I’ve never eaten his food, I have devoured his words, both written and spoken, as have many who live closer to the food world than I do. His message of eating locally with respect for the places we harvest ripples to the farthest reaches of the planet and has contributed to better eating for everyone. So yea, I’m happy he’s back on top. Check out his books….they are as much about story as they are about recipes. And by the way, Rene Redzepi: A Work in Progress is also a nominee in the Professional Cookbook category and the Photography category.

James Beard Awards 2014

The Beard Awards cover all aspects of the food industry from chefs to designers and are specific to North America. Per JamesBeard.org:

Established in 1990, the James Beard Foundation Awards recognize culinary professionals for excellence and achievement in their fields and continue to emphasize the Foundation’s mission: to celebrate, preserve, and nurture America’s culinary heritage and diversity. Each award category has an individual Awards committee made up of industry professionals who volunteer their time to oversee the policies, procedures, and selection of judges for their respective Awards program.

Award winners for 2014 will be announced on Monday, May 5. Here are a couple of the nominees and their fabulous books.

A16: Best Wine Program

This is a gorgeous restaurant and a gorgeous cookbook that you can actually cook from. And in my case perhaps learn a thing or fifty-eight about wine. Steve will tell you how perfectly hopeless I am when it comes to knowing/describing/understanding wine…but I am good at drinking it!

Daniel Patterson: Best Chef in the West

I’m not going to go on and on and embarrass myself (again), just read about Daniel Patterson and Coi here. The book is gorgeous and Chef has a beautiful writing voice that bring ingredients, place and food to life.

I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do. They are as at home on my bedside table as they are the kitchen counter. Cook something wonderful for dinner, or maybe order in and read a really great story about food.
Leslie

Warren Berger also writes for Fast Company and created a list of 8 questions we can ask ourselves to help us to move our lives in the direction of our most authentic passions. Here are the questions…are you creating the life you are meant to live?

1. What is your tennis ball? What pulls you and draws you (like a tennis ball chased by a dog)? Where do you gravitate most naturally?

2. What are you doing when you feel most beautiful? Where and when do you feel most alive?

3. What is something you believe that nearly everyone disagrees with? What is uniquely and originally your idea?

4. What are your superpowers? Berger suggests determining your own unique strengths and suggests a brief film to help you figure it out. The Science of Character…8 minutes to your best future.

5. What did you enjoy doing at age 10? Gretchen Rubin, who writes on happiness, says that the key may be in what you loved doing before people began telling you what you should do.

6. What are you willing to try now? Get out of your head and act. Trial and error will show you your path.

7. Looking back on your career 20 or 30 years from now, what do you want to say you’ve accomplished? Similar to a write-your-own-obit exercise, what do you want to be remembered for?

8. What is your sentence? You should be able to synthesize yourself in one sentence….a whole paragraph represents a loss of focus. If your sentence contains a goal not yet achieved, then it’s time to figure out how to live up to your sentence.

I hope this gets your juices flowing. It does mine….this definitely gets its own notebook.

This morning I needed a happiness shot. Not for any particular reason, but I just did and I got it from Shawn Achor, a psychologist and the founder and CEO of Good Think, Inc. He gave a TED talk a few years ago that reflects the way that I parent, which is great, but in the moment I sometimes forget that it should direct the way that I live as well.

As a society we tend to believe happiness will result from the completion or acquisition of something. We will be happy when we are successful. I’ve spent my parenting career telling my children that a new phone or toy or dress or friend won’t make them happy. They will be happy when they choose to be happy with the toy or dress or friend or phone that they already possess. So why, then, do we think that we will be happier if we, as adults, are more productive or successful in our jobs? In fact, it’s just the opposite. We will be more successful at our jobs when we look at life through a lens that allows us to be happy.

According to Mr. Achor, if you can be happy in the present, you will be more successful at work. He says the ‘happiness advantage’ provides:

more success securing a job

ability to keep a job

superior productivity

more resiliency

less burnout

less turnover

greater sales

If you want to train your brain to be positive you should do the following five things for 21 days straight. Randy Scott Hyde experimented with the five for 30 days. They worked for him (and he draws some pretty awesome stick figures along the way). I’m starting today….why not do something momentous on April Fools Day? Seems like the perfect time to me.

The James Beard Kitchen cam made its debut today with Daniel Boulud and his team cooking from his cookbook Daniel: My French Cuisine. I found myself watching as much to see talented chefs making beautiful food as to see if they display the temperament of the many chefs whose kitchens I spent time in many moons ago.

When I first heard they were putting a live camera in the kitchen at The James Beard House I was reminded of the year that one of the football leagues (not the NFL…USFL maybe?) put microphones in players’ helmets. Remember how well that worked out? Well hopefully this will be a more productive use of the technology and there will be less cursing….or at least the cursing will be in French! I’ve been in an awful lot of restaurant kitchens (often back end toward the kitchen as I was beating a hasty retreat after relaying a less than welcome customer request). Of course I was never in the kitchen of the Daniel Bouluds of the world. Now you and I and all the rest of them can spend some time in the James Beard Kitchen with the professionals.

So far things are looking very civilized. I admit it, I’m looking for a few fireworks. It’s a kitchen for goodness sake!
Leslie

One of the things that I love about San Francisco is that people will forego paying the heating bill if necessary in order to eat great food. There is so much amazing food going on in Bay Area restaurants that sometimes something has to give. I can always burn old chairs for heat, but never in this lifetime will I be cooking like Kim Alter or the Rich team. This time of year is always a little frustrating because there are so many great places that I still haven’t eaten and they’re all in the news at once…awards time. So I’m just starting a list of who’s in contention for which award in the Bay Area and I’ll start pecking them off one by one. Please don’t let on to Steve that this plan is in the works. He might shut me down.

Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist (now that is a new one for me), studied what motivates people at work. What he found is that in our ‘knowledge economy’, vs the economy born of the industrial revolution, workers are more productive and willing to work harder if they are able to see a project all the way through, rather than just screwing the same nut onto the same bolt over and over again on an assembly line. No longer is a paycheck enough to satisfy most workers. Meaning, creativity and ownership are also part of the mix that motivates ‘knowledge’ workers. This takes me back to when I graduated from college. I spent the first 10 years of my career in small architectural offices for the explicit reason that I would have the opportunity to work all phases of my projects just because teams, and often projects, were smaller. And each of the team member’s contributions were larger. Whereas I had a friend who went straight to one of the very large architectural firms and spent a year developing bathroom fixture schedules for a very large building project. She only lasted that first year before moving to a smaller firm.

If you are hiring employees, or are seeking a job, here are some things to keep in mind. A workplace where you can be happy and productive requires a cultural shift away from the motivation=money paradigm. There is more than just money required to create a positive work environment and therefore happy employees.

So, apparently the ‘blame and shame’ management style that seems awfully prevalent out there isn’t very productive. Take a note, bosses! And watch the video. Your employees may stay around longer.

Happy nearly Friday,
Leslie

https://i2.wp.com/leslielaskinreese.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/funny-motivational-quotes-18.jpg?fit=600%2C480480600Lesliehttp://leslielaskinreese.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/logo15.pngLeslie2014-03-20 17:29:412016-08-16 20:13:49motivation: more than money

I recently posted about good design and what I’m willing to pay for it. It matters. But does it make people happy? And what about the happiness of the designers who create the design? Are they happy?

Happy Clients

A couple of nights ago a residential client of mine invited me to a small gathering at her house. We recently completed a remodel of her somewhat drab, poorly lit, dysfunctional kitchen. There were several compliments on the look of the kitchen, but there was one guest, Stuart we’ll call him (because that’s his name), who had apparently been asking for me since his arrival. Stuart told me how much he liked how the kitchen looked, but what really made me feel like the project was a success was when he went on about how it made him feel. He was so excited about how the space felt to him: open and airy and comfortable. And in his opinion, it worked just perfectly (although all he was doing in it was drinking wine and noshing).

When I approach a new design project I always begin with a questionnaire or a long conversation where I ask a lot of questions. One of the questions is always ‘what mood are you trying to create?’ Of course I want my design work to look good. But my first order of business is making it work. Does it provide the service that is needed, and equally important, does it feel the way the client would like it to feel. So far, I haven’t yet had a client tell me that the mood they were after was sadness.

Happy Designers

If I’ve created a project that makes people some version of happy (because that is usually what they are after….I haven’t yet done a mortuary), then I will be happy as well. But there are other components of designer happiness. Stefan Sagmeister talks a lot about happiness and design. He is a designer (with a very wide list of talents) who has created a few TED talks. One is below, and this one particularly speaks to me. It’s shorter and a bit sweeter than the typical TED talk, so listen while you have a cup of coffee. Or two. He mentions a couple of awesome New York City visual projects in his talk that make him happy. Both are a bit surprising, which is part of what creates the joy. Links follow the video.

I think that most of us want to be happy and successful (whatever our version of success is), and some of us aspire to wealth as well. So the lists I’ve posted over the last few days share the wisdom (hopefully) of others’ research into the habits we need to develop to get there. The lists include 21 habits to be happy, 10 habits to be rich and 7 habits to be successful. There are only two habits that all three lists share:

Do you maintain any of these habits? Or maybe all of them? I’m putting these 7 on the top of my priority list and aiming to include a few more from the happy and successful lists. Happy people also need to listen to happy music…so be happy with Pharrell’s jam! Now I’m off to yoga….happy Monday!

that’s my daughter graduating high school….see her in the front left? yea….kind of hard to make out.

Before I could begin the search for a list of habits of successful people, I had to define for myself what success is. My definition of success, at least for this purpose, is from the free online dictionary: the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted. So here we are in this life trying to make some kind of a go of it, and whether we want money, happiness or something else, it is the achievement of that thing that defines success.

I think that Dr. Stephen Covey hits the nail on the head. He published his remarkably popular book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ in 1989. His habits number 1-3 allow us first to define that ‘thing’ that signifies our success. Dr. Covey breaks his habits down into 3 categories: Independence, interdependence and continuous improvement. The descriptions that follow are my interpretations of Dr. Covey’s explanations.

Independence

Habit 1: Be Proactive. Take initiative, make choices and take responsibility for your choices and the consequences that follow.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind. Discover and clarify your most important character values and life goals.

Habit 3: Put first things first. First things are those things you, personally, find of most worth.

Interdependence

Habit 4: Think win-win. No one need lose in order for another to win, there is enough to go around so genuinely strive for mutually beneficial solutions.

Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Learn to listen empathically.

Habit 6: Synergize. Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork in order to achieve solutions no one person could have found alone.

Continuous Improvement

Habit 7: Sharpen the saw. Create a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life (physical, social/emotional, mental, spiritual). For example,

physical: beneficial eating, exercising, and resting.

social/emotional: making social and meaningful connections with others.

So habit 7 is pretty huge. That’s why this list is so much shorter than the prior 2 lists for wealth and happiness. Next post is a comparison of the three lists. I’ve already got a few habits that I’ll be wanting to focus on.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this. Actually I am….I feel kind of creepy. My parents were both depression era babies so I grew up in a home that was very thrifty, where happiness was based on things that had nothing to do with the things that money can buy. Although we were comfortable, when we traveled we stayed at Motel 6 (when it really cost $6) or at a relative’s home, and a big night out to dinner was at Denny’s. And I occasionally got a stern “not this time Les” when I tried to order the prawns. Being rich was never something that I aspired to. If anything both the thought of aspiring to wealth and having wealth make me feel uncomfortable. In our house we buy what we need, give what we can, try to teach our children that stuff doesn’t make people happy and generally focus on other things that we truly value.

But some people do aspire to wealth. And Tom Corley has written a whole book about it. He has a list of 10 things that rich people do (and poor people don’t). Although he freely admits that this is a work in progress, his methods have been heavily questioned, and in my opinion rightfully so. But I’m not posting this because I agree or disagree. It’s just a list. Tomorrow I’m going to find and post habits of happy people. The next day I’m going to see what I can find about habits of successful people. Then we can compare and contrast and see if we all think that wealth, happiness and success have anything to do with one another.

Before we start, do you want to be rich? If you were rich would you be happy? And what do you think success is?

1. 70% of wealthy eat less than 300 junk food calories per day. 97% of poor people eat more than 300 junk food calories per day. 23% of wealthy gamble. 52% of poor people gamble.

2. 80% of wealthy are focused on accomplishing some single goal. Only 12% of the poor do this.

3. 76% of wealthy exercise aerobically 4 days a week. 23% of poor do this.

4. 63% of wealthy listen to audio books during commute to work vs. 5% for poor people.

5. 81% of wealthy maintain a to-do list vs. 19% for poor.

6. 63% of wealthy parents make their children read 2 or more non-fiction books a month vs. 3% for poor.

7. 70% of wealthy parents make their children volunteer 10 hours or more a month vs. 3% for poor.

8. 80% of wealthy make Happy Birthday calls vs. 11% of poor

9. 67% of wealthy write down their goals vs. 17% for poor

10. 88% of wealthy read 30 minutes or more each day for education or career reasons vs 2% for poor.

parti* notes is…

…a compilation of interesting, and hopefully enlightening, information about the worlds of architecture, design and food. My belief is that by sharing what intrigues us, the world we create will become that much more remarkable. If you’d like this in your inbox….

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About me

At the core I am a story teller. I've been designing commercial interiors for over twenty years and writing for much longer than that.

When I'm not working on a project I'm creating note cards, jewelry, a better way to get through daily chores, my own stories both true and not so much, a new garden, furniture, recipes. And most importantly relationships....with family, friends and clients. I live near San Francisco with hubby, one small dog and five chickens and spend a great deal of time texting my children who are away at college.